(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention is concerned with a pretied necktie of the type comprising a semirigid knot support, a front tie member fixed to and wrapped around the knot support and a rear tie member having a loop-shaped, neck encircling upper end which can be inserted and adjusted around the neck of a wearer by means of a zip fastener forming part of it.
More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a pretied necktie of the above mentioned type, which is improved in that the semirigid knot support and the slider of the zip fasteners are provided with a set of cooperating snap fastening means that make them very easy to connect and thereby make the necktie very easy to manufacture and assemble.
(b) Brief Description of the Prior Art
Pretied neckties of the above mentioned type are already known and some of them even are commercially available. In this connection, reference can be made, by way of example, to U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,698 to BYRD et al. or to U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,453 to CHEN et al. Reference can also be made to copending patent application No. 801,694 filed on Nov. 1, 1985 to the name of the present inventor, Mr. Martin LANDE.
If all the existing pretied neckties of the above mentined type have numerous advantages, they also have a common known drawback, namely the fact that they are difficult to assemble. Indeed, the structure of all these known pretied neckties makes it compulsory to connect together, in one single step, the front tie member, the knot support and the gripping tab of the slider of the zip fastener, such a connection being usually carried out by means of a rivet. In addition of requesting some skill, this method of connecting the various elements of the neckties requires the use of a riveting machine, thereby substantially increasing the cost of the neckties.
Moreover, all the existing pretied neckties of the above mentioned ties have another common known drawback, namely the fact that they all tend to loosen during use, thereby requiring the wearer to readjust permanently the knot of the tie about his neck. Indeed, a problem with these known neckties is that the zip fastener used for varying the size of the neck encircling loop is never hard enough to prevent it from loosening during use.
To overcome this well known drawback, different solutions have been proposed up to now.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,453, it is suggested to insert a M-shaped clamp as plug into the vertical hole of the knot support in order to lock the rear tie member in position. In copending Canadian patent application No. 494,395, it is suggested to use a stopper made of compressible foam. This stopper is slidably engaged into the vertical hole of the knot support in such a manner to engage the strings and lock the same. It is also suggested as an alternative in this copending Canadian patent application, to use strips of VELCRO fastener fixed to suitable parts of the front and rear tie members to lock them together once the neck encircling loop has been adjusted.
These proposed solutions are efficient in use. However, they require either clamps or stoppers that are not rigidly connected to the knot support and thus can be lost, or strips of VELCRO that must stitched and thus increase the amount of time and labour required in order to assemble the tie.